Durham University
Programme and Module Handbook
This is an archived handbook for a previous year. The current undergraduate and postgraduate handbooks can be viewed using the links above.

Undergraduate Handbook 2006-2007 (archived)

Module EDUC3081: NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

Department: Education

EDUC3081: NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

TypeLevelCreditsAvailabilityModule CapLocation
Open 3 20 Available in 2006/2007 None. Durham

Pre-requisites

  • None.

Corequisites

  • None.

Excluded Combinations

  • None.

Aims

  • To give students a good understanding of recent trends in reconceptualising the social sciences against a background of contemporary changes in society.
  • To this end it attempts to delineate and assess the impact on the social sciences of recent movements, such as postmodernism and post-structuralism.

Content

  • This module attempts to delineate and assess the impact on the social sciences of recent movements, such as postmodernism and post-structuralism.
  • In brief, those movements include: a heightened awareness of the ways that power is implicated in knowledge.
  • the rejection of the 'sovereign subject' , with its impact on notions held to be central to the social sciences, eg rationality and autonomy.
  • the challenge to the idea that 'truth' consists in a correspondence to 'reality'.
  • the foregrounding of language, with the concomitant emphasis on 'textuality'.
  • the radical version of relativism sometimes held to be implied by postmodernism.
  • sceptiscm towards linear theories of development and associated conceptions of 'progress'.
  • the challenge to Enlightenment-derived ideas of liberty and equality.
  • the replacement of the ideal of 'knowledge' by that of 'conversation'.
  • 'Incredulity' towards 'grand narratives'.
  • These themes, foreshadowed to some extent in the second year module, Philosophy of Social Science, will be explored with respect to specific social science topics and subjects, and their implications for the future development of the discipline and for research, explored.

Learning Outcomes

Subject-specific Knowledge
  • .
Subject-specific Skills
Key Skills

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

  • .

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

ActivityNumberFrequencyDurationTotal HoursAttendance Monitored
Lectures 22 Weekly 1 hour 22
Tutorials 12 Fortnightly 1 hour 12
Seminars 12 Fortnightly 1 hour 12
Preparation and Reading 154
Total 200

Summative Assessment

ComponentComponent WeightingElementLength/DurationElement WeightingResit Opportunity
Examination 50% two-hour unseen written examination 100%
Essays 50% essay 1 2000 word essay 50%
essay 2 2000 word essay 50%

Formative Assessment

One essay during the first term (2000 words max)

Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.